Something You Said Last Night
Written and Directed by Luis De Filippis
Starring Carmen Madonia, Ramona Milano, Paige Evans, Joe Parro
Rated 14A (Not yet rated in the US)
Runtime: 96 minutes
Opens September 22 in LA and September 29 in New York\

by Jo Rempel, Staff Writer

There used to be a lot of smoking in films, and now there isn’t. Since the mid-aughts, major studios have been pinching the tip off on-screen tobacco, especially in films targeted at children. This phenomenon is limited to the American studio system: Drive My Car’s loner duo communicated through cigarettes, as Victoria Hochberg notes with jealousy on the DGA Podcast. And even if studio regs prevent a kid or two from picking up the habit, nicotine dependence remains the language of disaffected youth.

So consider Something You Said Last Night, Italian-Canadian writer/director Luis De Filippis’ debut feature, a modern Casablanca, a story told almost entirely via vape smoke.

The film begins with our stoic millennial protagonist rummaging through garbage bags strewn across a car’s back seats. This is desperation, shaking camera, jump cuts and all. It takes us a full minute to find out what she was searching for: pieces of the pale pink obelisk to sneak a hit or two in a pit stop bathroom.

Renata (Carmen Madonia—whose Instagram bio reads “Lead vape girl”—in her screen debut) is on a much-needed vacation with her family, who aren’t so needed. She’s unemployed and too jaded to handle her gung-ho mom and teenaged sister. Very Italian, too; her parents, played by Ramona Milano and Joe Parro, are credited as “Mona” and “Guido”. Arguments with her sister, Sienna (Paige Evans) are allayed with pitched scusamis, both sincere and facetious.

As part of “mom’s rules,” Renata isn’t supposed to be vaping. Doesn’t that make you need it more? Between all the big arguments and shows of affection, it’s the onslaught of determined pulls that keeps the tension going.

There are moments where we’re looking at family and strangers as Renata curls into the frame, buffered by her shoulder or elbow, or when we push in in sync with her from behind, only sure of movement itself.

Renata’s trying to be a writer, a fact we’re only aware of through her mother. Whatever that “trying to be” means. Norm Li’s anxiously curious handheld photography does occupy the space of “attempting”, however. At the same time, I can’t say the career choice factors into her character beyond being a reason for her to be broke and disaffected. It’s less a writer’s attitude than that of a middle child. Or are all middle children destined to be artists?

The same ambiguity goes for the extra doting Renata’s mother doles out. Is it because Ren’s a young trans woman, or is there some some unspoken reason? Don’t get me wrong, this is a trans film. I don’t mean this in a spiritual sense, the way that every work of art I like is secretly trans in how it breaks down rigid barriers. I mean it in the very material sense of being awkward and adolescent and a little too late on both counts. I mean being mostly well-adjusted but still trying to act natural, learn the right mode of intimacy. Between Renata and Sienna there are so many moments where the sisters are emotionally attuned to each other, always in silence. They simple touch, and mirror each other.

There is also something more—a scene where Renata is on her own, off on some small island her body frictionless between sky and sea. She is etched into the sunlight; she is alone.

A young couple, equally alone, cuts the mood short. This is the type of scene we’re used to by now, having seen Renata blow vape smoke across a glass table in the brief moment her father has his back turned, before swatting it away. Or the many times we’ve seen her treated in wide, seeking chemical loneliness just beyond the pale of the crowd. Or lying in bed, texting or not. We are shown a fine line between boredom and spiritual freedom.

Again, this is Madonia’s screen debut; none of the principal cast are known quantities, either. De Filippis has made them into a family of her own. Of special note is Parro, mostly seen in the background sporting a sober glare. He and Renata have an unspoken affinity which drives the film’s story. Realism means a traditional plot is forgone—in this uneasy reunion, the story beats are all comprised of identifications between a woman and her object. Each member of the family functions as a buoy that we tether temporarily to while slipping through time.

Noemi Preiswerk is the editor for Something You Said Last Night; she also cut Knock at the Cabin, another release from this year about a family getaway. Other than trivia about two great movies, it’d be proper to note how much is at stake. I’ve talked about joy, boredom, anxiety, and bliss; scenes linger, but no emotion ever overpowers all the other. Something you said last night—but what was it? The title urges you to return to the film, just to see what it’ll make you feel next.